arXiv subjects

Jingyao Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Jingyao Zhang.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Global Attitude Synchronization of Networked Rigid Bodies Under Directed Topologies

The global attitude synchronization problem is studied for networked rigid bodies under directed topologies. To avoid the asynchronous pitfall where only vector parts converge to some identical value but scalar parts do not, multiplicative quaternion errors are leveraged to develop attitude synchronization protocols for rigid bodies with the absolute measurements. It is shown that global synchronization of networked rigid bodies can be achieved if and only if the directed topology is quasi-strongly connected. Simultaneously, a novel double-energy-function analysis method, equipped with an ordering permutation technique about scalar parts and a coordinate transformation mechanism, is constructed for the quaternion behavior analysis of networked rigid bodies. In particular, global synchronization is achieved with our analysis method regardless of the highly nonlinear and strongly coupling problems resulting from multiplicative quaternion errors, which seriously hinder the traditional analysis of global synchronization for networked rigid bodies. Simulations for networked spacecraft are presented to show the global synchronization performances under different directed topologies.

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arXiv2022

Fundamental Trackability Problems for Iterative Learning Control

Generally, the classic iterative learning control (ILC) methods focus on finding design conditions for repetitive systems to achieve the perfect tracking of any specified trajectory, whereas they ignore a fundamental problem of ILC: whether the specified trajectory is trackable, or equivalently, whether there exist some inputs for the repetitive systems under consideration to generate the specified trajectory? The current paper contributes to dealing with this problem. Not only is a concept of trackability introduced formally for any specified trajectory in ILC, but also some related trackability criteria are established. Further, the relation between the trackability and the perfect tracking tasks for ILC is bridged, based on which a new convergence analysis approach is developed for ILC by leveraging properties of a functional Cauchy sequence (FCS). Simulation examples are given to verify the effectiveness of the presented trackability criteria and FCS-induced convergence analysis method for ILC.

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arXiv2020

Less is More: Data-Efficient Complex Question Answering over Knowledge Bases

Question answering is an effective method for obtaining information from knowledge bases (KB). In this paper, we propose the Neural-Symbolic Complex Question Answering (NS-CQA) model, a data-efficient reinforcement learning framework for complex question answering by using only a modest number of training samples. Our framework consists of a neural generator and a symbolic executor that, respectively, transforms a natural-language question into a sequence of primitive actions, and executes them over the knowledge base to compute the answer. We carefully formulate a set of primitive symbolic actions that allows us to not only simplify our neural network design but also accelerate model convergence. To reduce search space, we employ the copy and masking mechanisms in our encoder-decoder architecture to drastically reduce the decoder output vocabulary and improve model generalizability. We equip our model with a memory buffer that stores high-reward promising programs. Besides, we propose an adaptive reward function. By comparing the generated trial with the trials stored in the memory buffer, we derive the curriculum-guided reward bonus, i.e., the proximity and the novelty. To mitigate the sparse reward problem, we combine the adaptive reward and the reward bonus, reshaping the sparse reward into dense feedback. Also, we encourage the model to generate new trials to avoid imitating the spurious trials while making the model remember the past high-reward trials to improve data efficiency. Our NS-CQA model is evaluated on two datasets: CQA, a recent large-scale complex question answering dataset, and WebQuestionsSP, a multi-hop question answering dataset. On both datasets, our model outperforms the state-of-the-art models. Notably, on CQA, NS-CQA performs well on questions with higher complexity, while only using approximately 1% of the total training samples.

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arXiv2019

System Equivalence Transformation: Robust Convergence of Iterative Learning Control with Nonrepetitive Uncertainties

For iterative learning control (ILC), one of the basic problems left to address is how to solve the contradiction between convergence conditions for the output tracking error and for the input signal (or error). This problem is considered in the current paper, where the robust convergence analysis is achieved for ILC systems in the presence of nonrepetitive uncertainties. A system equivalence transformation (SET) is proposed for ILC such that given any desired reference trajectories, the output tracking problems for general nonsquare multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) systems can be equivalently transformed into those for the specific class of square MIMO systems with the same input and output channels. As a benefit of SET, a unified condition is only needed to guarantee both the uniform boundedness of all system signals and the robust convergence of the output tracking error, which avoids causing the condition contradiction problem in implementing the double-dynamics analysis approach to ILC. Simulation examples are included to demonstrate the validity of our established robust ILC results.

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arXiv2019

Optimization-Based Learning Control for Nonlinear Time-Varying Systems

Learning to perform perfect tracking tasks based on measurement data is desirable in the controller design of systems operating repetitively. This motivates the present paper to seek an optimization-based design approach for iterative learning control (ILC) of repetitive systems with unknown nonlinear time-varying dynamics. It is shown that perfect output tracking can be realized with updating inputs, where no explicit model knowledge but only measured input/output data are leveraged. In particular, adaptive updating strategies are proposed to obtain parameter estimations of nonlinearities. A double-dynamics analysis approach is applied to establish ILC convergence, together with boundedness of input, output, and estimated parameters, which benefits from employing properties of nonnegative matrices. Moreover, robust convergence is explored for optimization-based adaptive ILC in the presence of nonrepetitive uncertainties. Simulation tests are also implemented to verify the validity of our optimization-based adaptive ILC.

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